Analysis of Radio Frequency Interferences in TerraSAR-X Products

Abstract:
TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites acquire data all over the world. As the used frequency band is shared by various systems, external signals may unintentionally be recorded. These occurrences are called Radio Frequency Interferences (RFIs). Especially for future Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions with much larger bandwidths than TerraSARX/ TanDEM-X it is important to understand these RFIs to potentially establish countermeasures to suppress them. The goal of this paper is to extract RFI characteristics and search for possible sources of these events. As a practical example, the paper investigates several RFI events discovered over Los Angeles.